They obviously do work for him, since he's been in business since the 90s. Not exactly lots of other indie game companies that have been around that long.

Well, no, that's exactly what they're commonly known for: bad graphics but good writing.

If he let some people in on the code under say an NDA, there's fair chance some would do it for free.

I guess he meant if there is obligatory but boring combat that distracts from the story. But you bring up an important aspect, which is exploration. And I would add presentation to it, because as I said before, stories don't have to be made up by words alone. If a game just throws walls of text at you and then bores you with combat sequences in between, I'd agree with PetrusOctavianus, but the moment it adds other elements like exploration, interaction, graphics, sounds, music etc., experiencing the story in the medium of a videogame becomes different from reading a book.

Non-graphical text adventures were foundational to gaming, and I think a lot of people have forgotten the power of a good description.

You are standing in a strange sort of place. The air is humid, and somewhat cool, yet it feels as though the freshness left to go buy milk and never came back. The walls are a milky-brown with smooth ridges; having been shaped by untold torrents of water boring though for uncountable times. From where you stand, it'd seem you can go south, upwards and rising of a small climb, north to a forking inward passage, and east, to some unknown chamber of twisting crystals.

But they had interactivity, exploration, puzzles as well. If it were all about the good descriptions only, they could indeed have been replaced by a book.

well that's what I'm saying. He does Mac tho doesn't he? Typical.

I've played Geneforge and a few of the old Avernums and I would call the writing competent but still nothing amazing.

Good descriptions work best with a good story music sound and visual design. Eg Fallout. Or say The Last Express.
Sometimes design/music/sound can carry it without much (or any) text at all - see Neverhood. On the contrary, the same author's "spiritual successor" to it had some nice story/descriptions but poorly done pretty much everything else make those practically useless.

Interesting post, and a good summary of Jeff's statement. Now for the answer.

1) Okay the point he's making is nothing more than subjective experience. Some people(like myself) are a little more of a stickler than he's providing. The value of story depends on a lot of factors. Fighting games and Strategy games(both turn based and real time) have more forgiving audiences that realize the difficulty of focusing on plot. But Crpg and JRPG fans are going to be considerably more ruthless in cutting apart your story. This would be better served by cutting into point 2. Quite frankly it's a bit of a red flag for things to come with hos dismissive this guy is.

2) I will heavily disagree with the reasons behind this section title, though the title itself is accurate. Movies and books as their medium don't have a lot of constant demand cognitively. You sit on your ass and watch or read, not a lot of big brain processing going on there. It's not nothing sure, but compare to the decision making going on in a live RPG battle where you track stats, ability timing, item use, enemy movement, positioning(as applicable). We don't have as much time to dedicate watching the beasts in Monster Hunter, since we're busy being the hunter. Much of what we see will be practical, since we're active in the world, not reactive. The ability to ignore limited plot using mechanics and level design as the means of interaction and investment is the key here. The idea players tune out the story at all is nonsense, it depends on how much the necessity of mechanics interferes with the mental phenomenon of narrative transportation.

I'll use his example from WoW. Most people would get a reasonably good score on the lore if they are a solo player or the kind that focuses on their character. The reason most people tend to blow off the story, is because the other players around us and the long-term planning parts of the brain take precedence and make narrative transportation limited. In laymans terms, there's too much going on in mechanics and with our fellow players for our minds to be tricked into thinking the world we're experiencing is reality, so we on instinct are more prone to dismiss it. The nature of this varies wildly on genre and gameplay.

And don't think I missed that last comments. Games are excellent for story. I struggle with the Ashley/Kaiden devision in mass effect and for quite a while thought back to what I could have done. I adore Dark souls worldbuilding and simple plotline, and as a major cRPG fan and JRPG fan, I absolutely love the breaks in combat for dialogue choices, voice acting, and the use of level and plot to make battles much more meaningful and vice versa. To say games aren't something people care about is insulting.

3) Jeff is just wrong here. Dumbing down plots this level of simple is just dismissive. It's like saying "The Plot to Dark Souls is just go to some fire and kill a guy." It's undermining the reasons behind the choose to kill Gwynn and either light, or abandon, the flame. Imagine saying Baldur's Gate "is just a story of you hunting down a big jerk to kill." Both for Saravok and Irrenacous that is ignoring more or less the entire plot and not giving two damns about anything going on in it. This one pissed me off, Jeff would be wise to rethink this horsecrap. And fucker, if he wants to shit on Xenoblade Chronicles like that, I will find him and smack him with these bear hands. Rawr.

4) Okay I can't comment on this one since there's not a lot here. It's a load of extremely conceptual wording without example of examination. I can't contradict anything he says because all he's done is post broad conclusions without any reasoning behind it. This is just bad essay writing.

5) This is so divorce from the essays thesis is has no point. But even if it were a point, it's nothing but a passive aggressive insult, as if companies set out to make outright trash on purpose just to fuck with people. Even trash Fan 4stick have an attempt to be quality work. It's managers either not giving enough time, or having to answer for earlier bad management and having to rush to cut content like mad, that fucks products over. that even the executive goes "yes, this is so terrible, I love it. Put it to print and let's watch the games reeee." No, they go "Well, I'm not even sure you could have done better, print it, we don't have a choice not to." The question implies shit like this is intentional. What's next, college students procrastinate because they -want- an F?

6) First, the section title. Define "individual" and "human" in the context of an adjective applicable to something like a voice. Even distinctive is a completely useless word you should ignore since it's meaning is entirely relational. It's like saying "you need a distant voice." This means nothing if you don't have a reference point to compare to.

As for his first paragraph: AAA games just need strong writers and good direction. I mentioned Xenoblade Chronicles earlier, but I can also include most of the Tales series, Final Fantasy, Castlevania, even smaller games like Lost Kigndoms(I know, old as hell). And having a big name doesn't mean your game will even be good. Poke'mon has always sucked story wise, Megaman has great ideas(especially the X series) but only Command Mission has a story that isn't crap. But hey, if he wants to enrage me by suggesting Trails In the sky isn't a glorious masterpiece of storytelling, or a good chunk of people here by implying Bauldur's Gate isn't amazing, then he can be an idiot.

This man comes off like an ignorant loon, like someone who has never studied a failed project or spoken with people behind a failed project. And that's even ignoring the frankly noticeable mistakes in general essay writing like using overly broad language, lack of examples in key aspects, out of nowhere passive-aggressive tangents, and dismissive and frankly ugly misconcepts of people.

For someone who makes Crpg(I followed the link) this is....just concerning.

BG2 overarching plot story/script/narrative and location sequencing is anything but amazing.

I agree with him in a broad sense.

What I enjoy about his (Spiderweb) games is not just the writing though, the main thing I enjoy is actually the gameplay; there are people like me out there who enjoy playing this type of old-school gameplay more than modern ones. I'd be more excited for a new Spiderweb game than some new Dark Souls, Mass Effect or even Witcher game, because I know I like that gameplay more.

I don't really agree with his examples of good/bad writing, but to each his own.

I do agree that most of the good and interesting writing has come from Indie games, because they have to stand out in order to survive. Most triple-a titles are aiming for a big generic crowd, which prevents them from doing interesting writing since it has to appeal to everyone. The mainstream media's backlash against the Witcher 3 and Kingdom Come Deliverance for being "too european", i.e.. having some kind of identity or narrative focus, is a prime example. Extremists aside, most gamers seem to appreciate writing and narrative that brings some kind of personality to the game, be it historic or otherwise.

He should have added a 7th observation though: games driven by politics have awful writing, because you can tell it's just an advert.

This is basically what I meant.

He has a lot of text in his games, and maybe it is decent writing. But, nothing memorable. At least not for me.

To be honest, I feel that he has probably been around for that long for a couple of reasons, mostly not for the writing:

1. Nostalgia. As I said, I bought the games for nostalgia's sake, because I could remember playing one of them IN the 90s, and it brings back memories. I am sure a lot of other people did the same.

2. The style of game play. At the time, there were few 'open world' games, so having a huge world to explore and decent gameplay and storyline would bring people in, and let them leave satisfied. Which again leads to nostalgia, of players coming back and wanting more of his types of games, simply to remember 'their first time' playing his other games. Again, not really much to do with his writing, except to say, it didn't stink enough to be memorable. Then again, it wasn't brilliant enough to be memorable.

3. Some of the game choices. Geneforge was a relatively novel idea, with being able to summon creatures that were unlike anything before, and having choices at the end on how to 'finish' the game. Most games around that timee were fairly linear and it was either 'you finish the game or you don't' and not a lot of choice in *how* the game ended.

Basically, I probably should have said his *stated* formulae isn't what made his games 'work', but rather a variety of different factors, one of which wasn't necessarily good writing.

Which is what I think he misses.

1. When I say a game has a good story, I mean the game has a good story. When I look for a game, I tend to go for games with characters I can relate to, a story line that keeps me coming back for more, and a satisfying ending that leaves me feeling I have accomplished something (which is a rarity these days sadly...). A 'good story', to me, is just that. It is basically the same thing if I were to pick up a book or movie. If I say that movie/book had a good story, I mean it had a good story, and the same for games.

Games don't necessarily need a *story* to work, look at doom and the games like that. But to say that players are so, can't think of the word I want to use here, I guess, 'unintelligent' will have to work for now, that to them any game that has a story has a 'good story' is really insulting gamers. It implies that they have no ability to discern nuances nor ability to decide what is a good story.

2. This is both true and not. Sometimes a story can be more limiting than the players want. Oh, you would never break into a house? but all the good loot is inside houses, making the player go against the story. Sometimes it is better that a game DOES force the player to follow the story (oh, you are a pacifist, well you only get non-lethal weapons). it all depends on the game play and where the story wants to end up.

3. Shoot, even Ultima Underworld: the Stygian abyss broke this mould. 'Hey you, you say you are the avatar, well, when you arrived, something bad happened. Fix it, and we believe you are the avatar, don't fix it, and we won't have to worry, because you will never be seen again'. Yeah, ultimately it had a 'bad guy' to kill, but honestly, most stories fall into the 'protagonist triumphs over the antagonist' plotline, and games are no different. Doesn't mean they are *bad*. As said by others, this also pretty much dismisses 99% of all the stories out there, no matter the media, because that is what the basic plotline is.

4. I sort of have to agree. If I have to be up on the latest internet humor, or if have to know the developers personally to get half the humor of the game, then I will probably not like it very much. I tend to prefer 'dry' humor or subtle humor. For the trick endings, it depends. Sometimes a 'wacky' trick ending, with proper foreshadowing, can be fun.

5. Oh, I don't know :P Bad writers can potentially be cheaper than a good writer who knows it, so it could cost more to have a good story.

6. Good writing comes from people who like writing and who are good at it. What is good writing can also be very much up to the person reading. I have seen people who get upset because a story is 'too long'. I tend to get upset with too short of stories (I want more darnit!). People can get upset when they can't relate to a character. People can get upset when they percieve a character does something they dislike. and so on. Does it mean the story is 'badly written', no, just that people didn't like certain aspects of it.

But, unless you are coming from an academic standpoint with a checklist of things a story has, in order to induct it into the 'this is a classic' hall of fame, most players don't care about what someone else considers 'good writing', they only care if *they* consider it good writing.

I mean look at the people in this thread, some feel BG had good writing, others don't. Some feel like Jeff Vogel's bames had good writing, others don't.

So to say that you will mainly get it in indie games, again, boils it down way to much.


Basically, I feel that the article is trying to shoehorn gamers into one singular profile. But gamers aren't. Thus games can't be boiled down to a singular aspect, nor can any aspect of the games be boiled down.

Some gamers want political storylines that fall in with their personal views. I try to avoid games that shove a political narrative on me. Some want choices in how the game turns out, sort of a 'choose your own adventure' type deal, others like following a more linear model.

Some gamers want the storyline and gameplay to go hand in hand, others want to be able to 'divorce' the game play from the story so they can just enjoy the game play.

For some, a bad story can be a breaking point for them with games. For others, bad gameplay is the breaking point. For yet others, they want both story and gameplay to at least be adequate.


So, I tend to avoid people who try to say 'this is how something should work' because they often try to boil things down too far, and forget that they are talking about a media that has a multitude of players, all who bring their own experiences to the game, and thus have their own sets of likes and dislikes. What works for one game won't work for another, and what works for one gamer won't work for another gamer.

Maybe, but the actual porting is only part of it. There were outsourced Avernum and Avadon games for Android; this is from a blog post about dropping Android support in 2016:

"On top of all of this, in our experience, for us, Android doesn't make that much money. Honestly, iPad doesn't either anymore. I mainly write games for the iPad as a hobby, because it amuses me. (By the way, if you want to know why we don't develop for Linux, consider all the arguments above, but triple.)"

It would be weird if he didn't considering that's his dev environment. The Windows versions are actually ports.

Apparently "competent" counts as "amazing" for game writing. Regardless, not everyone is going to agree on something subjective like quality of writing, but nevertheless that's what they're generally known for.

Or if I might rephrase this a bit to perhaps bring clarity to what I think you're saying, (do offer correction if otherwise) :
A game primarily about political messaging will have awful writing because they're just trying to drive their agenda.

There are plenty of games about or involving politics that are great; like Final Fantasy XII. And the entire (good) part of Star Wars had a political subtext.